Federal Court Releases Hold on Fast & Furious Docs Case

An interim victory for the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, which is suing the Obama administration over withheld Fast and Furious documents: a federal judge has lifted a 16-month delay in the Freedom of Information lawsuit.

That means the Department of Justice must turn over an index describing all of the material it’s been holding back since September of 2012. Judicial Watch had requested all of the documents that President Obama ordered withheld from Congress under executive privilege.

The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge John Bate orders the Justice Department to provide the so-called “Vaughn index” listing of documents by October first. The Justice Department has long claimed that allowing the Judicial Watch lawsuit to move forward would interfere with its ongoing lawsuit in which the House Oversight Committee is suing for the same documents.

The court originally agreed to put a hold on the Judicial Watch case in February of 2013 but stated, at the time, that it would: